Charles Sale: Multi-millionaire Ross playing ball with 2012 legacy

16 December 2009 12:13

The case for London's Olympic Stadium to be included in the list of prospective 2018 World Cup venues will be put to the selection panel this morning by the business magnate who had been chosen to oversee its long-term future after 2012.

Multi-millionaire David Ross, co-founder of the Carphone Warehouse, was London Mayor Boris Johnson's handpicked adviser on the London Olympics and its legacy before having to resign a year ago for breaking Stock Market rules governing the disclosure of share holdings.

Playing ball: David Ross's return to sports business includes a position on England's Commonwealth Games board and bid vehicle London United for 2018

However, Ross's return to sports business includes a position on England's Commonwealth Games board and bid vehicle London United, for whom he is leading the campaign for four captial arenas the others being Wembley, Emirates and Spurs' new ground to be part of the 2018 bid.

Ross no longer has any role in deciding what happens to the Olympic Stadium after the London Games, But, ironically, he now has the big opportunity to influence football becoming a core component to its future even with a running track in place.

The panel are expected to select at least 16 stadiums today, allowing FIFA, who make the final choice from a minimum of 12, some room for manoeuvre.

BBC Sport are extremely sensitive about any suggestion of an inside leak sparking the Betfair gamble on Sports Personality winner Ryan Giggs.

Yet their own cricket correspondent Jon Agnew (right), who has over 25,000 followers on Twitter, posted a picture from South Africa of the team of the year trophy won by the England cricket team an hour before the announcement.

Former local businessman and Notts County chairman Derek Pavis, now living in retirement in Spain, is showing interest in returning to Meadow Lane where a stand is named after him.

Executive chairman Peter Trembling, who lost his manager Hans Backe despite his management buy-out, is desperately looking for new investment in the League Two team and is understood to be offering a five per cent stake in the club for a £250,000 injection of funds.

Nike's wholehearted support for serial womaniser Tiger Woods is not only shown in their unequivocal weekend statement looking forward to his return to the golf course but also in their global intent to keep using their long-running slogan Just Do It.

Even though in connection with Tiger, it's now morphed everywhere into Just Do Her or Just Done Her.

Water under the bid?The England 2018 World Cup team had every right to be trumpeting the Government signing off the £300m worth of guarantees required by FIFA covering tax, visas and security over five months in advance of the bid book being submitted in May.

Crucial signature: Ex-FA chairman, Geoff Thompson

And all the potential stadiums for an England World Cup, to be announced this afternoon, have the myriad FIFA requirements in place as well.

But former FA chairman Geoff Thompson's crucial signature remains to be collected before the England bid can fully say they are right back on track following their meltdown period sparked by FIFA powerbroker Jack Warner's criticisms.

Thompson, who sits on the voting FIFA ExCo, has belatedly been made a director of the bid in the crisis re-structuring but has yet to attend a board meeting or sign his official 2018 director documents.

And his differences with bid leader and FA chairman Lord Triesman are such, following the way Thompson was hurried out of the FA six months early, that it is still difficult to see the two of them working harmoniously together.

Such are the complexities of the football agents' regulations the FA are trying to impose that the middle men are now reporting that a single transfer deal in the next window involving dual representation and image rights requires the signing of nearly 50 documents.

West Ham's Icelandic owners, who have their doubts about the £50m bid from formerBirmingham owners David Gold and David Sullivan, are still hopeful of Malaysian entrepreneur and Hammers fan Tony Fernandes, who founded airline AirAsia, putting together a bigger offer.